How I wish charms were written

[JohnDoe244]

Clarify rules and standardize terminology. You should always be able to tell, at a glance, the mechanical effect of a charm. These are, above all, rules widgets, and they're presented that way.

Thank you. That's just what the game needs.

Remove non-charm dice and speed bumps. There are so many ways to add non-charm dice in the basic rules that they hardly feel special anymore. There are also charms that do basically nothing other than provide a discount on the excellency in a certain situation.

THANK YOU. That's exactly what I want.

Remove unthematic charms. Solars do not mess with fate, they do not inhabit clone bodies, they do not cause natural disasters by research.
Shorten the chapter. The charm descriptions are generally 1/2 to 1/5th the original length.

Please, Onyx Path, please. I beg you. Hire this person.

Being a queer woman myself, I have experience with some of the issues around gendered language, but in this case I've preferred brevity and clarity over gender-neutrality. The Solar is still always referred to as she/her, everyone around her as he/him/they. (if you want to refer to me, she/her is good, thanks )

Really, truly, hire this woman.

[Sanctaphrax]

Yes, I've seen that post and it bothers me immensely. If certain effects shouldn't show up in the combat abilities because of the power-level effects they have, maybe they shouldn't show up anywhere?

It makes enough sense to me. One million successes on a stealth roll is no big deal, but one million successes on a combat roll could screw everything up. So respecting the cap is more important for combat abilities.

But obviously I don't like how they applied that logic to Craft.

[BlueWinds]

Please, Onyx Path, please. I beg you. Hire this person.

Really, truly, hire this woman.

Haha, thanks. Six months ago I'd have been interested, but the attitude of the developers has really worn on my enthusiasm. I'd rather keep working on my own projects.

It makes enough sense to me. One million successes on a stealth roll is no big deal, but one million successes on a combat roll could screw everything up. So respecting the cap is more important for combat abilities.

But obviously I don't like how they applied that logic to Craft.

Now that I'm in a fairer mood, it only bothers me a little bit - I had just read some other Holden comments which infected my attitude towards that particular post. Other abilities still need to be balanced across splats - Awareness vs. Stealth, or Sail vs. Sail. Basically every ability is potentially oppositional. Also, 20 dice is plenty to roll at once. It gets kind of cumbersome to count and pick up that many. (if I'd been designing 3e from scratch, I'd have kept the Second and Third Excellencies and thrown out the first).

1. And there are some more cuttable Charms in here. But at least Aegis Of Unstoppable Force is gone.
2. Grammar's iffy on the examples. There are some missing "ing"s.
3. That second comma is bugging me.
4. Pretty heavy nerf. You sure it's necessary?
5. Much clearer than the original. My compliments.
6. Not sure this should supplement a movement action, given that you can use it while stationary.
7. If used in combat, does it still last an hour? Canon specifies that this also boosts tests of speed. I think that bit is worth keeping, and maybe even expanding: it should be easier to run away at this speed, right?
8. I know canon set those prerequisites, but it doesn't make sense to me that this doesn't build off of Thunderbolt Attack Prana. They're basically the same Charm!
9. Not a big fan of this change. New Thunder's Might is even more speed-bumpy than old Power-Suffusing Form Technique, and literally does nothing alongside Nine Aeons Thew. Also I don't like the idea of pushing back the big boost to Essence 3.
10. This feels kinda redundant with Godspeed Steps. Moreso than the canon version.
11. I think making Bonfire Anima Wings a repurchase is a very good idea, but I'm not so sure about dropping the Onrush Burst Method prereq for it. Also, I liked the Mountain-Crossing Leap discount.
12. You should take another look at those prereqs.

Developers - Personal/Peripheral split, or Mute/non-mute split, pick one. Not going to change that at this point, but really I think the game could do with having only a single mechanic for determining if charms add to your flare.

2. At this point, I was still editing the core texts into a better shape, rather than writing-from-scratch. I later realized that interpret->write was an easier method than a rewrite->rewrite loop. Just a minor note about where this crept in from. (also I'm a terrible proof-reader in general)
3. Point.
4. It wasn't meant to be a nerf, but raising attribute scores is pretty wonky and unclear in how it works with other rules. Tweaked a bit, does this change seem a bit better?
5. Yay!
6. Point. Changed to Reflexive, duration One Turn.
7. Yep, still one hour in combat, same as the core version. Though it should really be Reflexive - at this point I was just sort of sick of everything being Reflexive and swung too far in the other direction. Also was a typo saying she gained 1i for every 1 instead of every 10. Tests of speed good idea too.
8. The charms are very similar, but not close enough that I want to make one a repurchase. You're right that it should be a prereq though!
9. Urg. Trying to figure out how to stagger dice-trick increases across essence levels is hard, though I agree that it wasn't working great as is. Does this new version work better for you? With Nine Aeons Thew, you can now spend 11m, 2wp to have disappearing 1s and 2s, double 9s and exploding 9s and 10s. http://anydice.com/program/76ca. Very reliably hit 15 successes, often hit 20. If you add in Triumph-Forged God-Body, it's reliably 20 successes.
10. Hrm. Looking at it a little closer, I think Godspeed Steps makes a good repurchase. But its name is so cool! So Demon-wasting Rush becomes the basic effect of an updated Godspeed Steps.
11. Hm. I'm pretty tempted to make Onrush Burst a prereq for Eagle-Wing Technique, now that I look at it - objections to that (instead of a prereq to the repurchase)
12. Ah, no, I just really hate this charm and want it to be unpurchasable and confusing. :P (fixed)

[BlueWinds]

Awareness is a tough tree. I don't really feel like there's quite enough meat here - there's only so many ways you can boost Join Battle and gain bonuses against Stealth, given that most of the previous meat of the charms was just things that should already be covered by rolling well.

If anyone has a few ideas for neat new Awareness charms, I'm all ears.

---

Awareness

Sidebar: WHAT CAN I DO WITH AWARENESS
In addition to the obvious use of noticing assassins, a Solar with 5 successes on an Awareness roll might:

• Read a letter at a glance from across the room, quickly count masses of troops, see through smoke and fog.
• Identify an individual by scent, count the number of individuals in a crowded room, detect poison before taking a bite of food, identify every ingredient in a stew, tell how long ago a specific person left a room..
• Listen to conversations through thick stone walls, identify materials by touch, recognize counterfits, feel an earthquake minutes or hours before it happens.

With 10 successes, she might:

• Spot a field mouse a quarter mile, read a letter at a hundred yards, critique the mating habits of insects.
• Smell blood from a mile away, identify which farm food came from by tasting each field in turn
• Listen in on a whispered conversation out to long range on a battlefield, read by tracing her fingers over the ink on a page, orient herself to the exit in complete darkness.

Sensory Acuity Prana
Cost: 5m; Mins: Awareness 2, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive (One Scene)
Keywords: None
Prerequisite Charms: None

This charm can be activated at any time. The Solar's Awareness rolls have double 8s.

Uncanny Perception Technique
Cost: --; Mins: Awareness 2, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Prerequisite Charms: None

When in the presence of dematerialized spirits, sorcerously-crafted living shadows and other generally invisible or intangible subjects, the Solar experiences strange sensory phenomena appropriate to the nature of the being, such as the sound of bells, the scent of chill winter wind or a coppery taste. She automatically notices the presence of such beings (but not their location). These sensations are as distinctive as a voice - she'll almost always recognize a spirit or being she's met before.

Surprise Anticipation Method
Cost: —; Mins: Awareness 3, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Prerequisite Charms: Sensory Acuity Prana

The Solar takes no penalties to Awareness rolls to notice personal danger from being tired, asleep or unconscious. She wakes with a premonition of danger (though not its source) even if she fails such a roll.

In addition, for every 10 the Solar rolls on an Awareness check to notice or locate a hidden enemy, trap, or any source of harm not readily apparent, she gains 1m.

Keen Sense Technique
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Awareness 3, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive (Indefinite)
Keywords: None
Prerequisite Charms: Sensory Acuity Prana

When the Solar purchases this charm, choose Sight, Hearing, or Smell, Taste and Touch.

This charm can be activated at any time. The Solar gains an additional (Perception) dice an any Awareness roll involving the chosen sense (or all three of them).

With an Essence 2+ repurchase, the Solar gains an additional (Essence) bonus dice.
With an Essence 3+ repurchase, the bonus applies to all the listed senses. In addition, the Solar takes no penalty to rolls because of being blind or deaf. If both, she only takes -2 on tasks that would normally require those senses.

Eyeless Harbinger Awareness
Cost: 3m; Mins: Awareness 3, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental (One Scene)
Keywords: None
Prerequisite Charms: Sensory Acuity Prana

This Charm supplements a Join Battle roll when at least one enemy is within Short range. It gains disappearing 1s, and if not already aware, the Solar learns the general size, shape and direction of her foe.

Awakening Eye
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Awareness 4, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental (Instant)
Keywords: None
Prerequisite Charms: Keen Sense Technique (Sight) or Keen Sense Technique x3

This Charm supplements a Join Battle roll with a free full Awareness Excellency and grants it exploding 10s.

Curse-Catching Instinct
Cost: -; Mins: Awareness 3, Essence 2
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Prerequisite Charms: Surprise Anticipation Method

Whenever another character lays a curse upon the Solar or meddles with her fate, she rolls (Perception + Awareness), difficulty (meddler's Essence). Success lets the Solar know vaguely what happened (someone is meddling with your fate). With 3 threshold successes she learns a summary of what happened (Sidereal Astrology associated with The Sword is being used to make you more likely to fall ill). With 5 threshold successes she learns what happened in detail (Tekkip Nannaja, Chosen of Endings, is using Astrology associated with The Sword to increase the TN of your disease-resistance rolls to 9 until Calibration).

Knowing Beyond Silence
Cost: 4m; Mins: Awareness 4, Essence 2
Type: Supplemental (Instant)
Keywords: Mute
Prerequisite Charms: Surprise Awareness Method

This charm supplements any Awareness roll that the Solar's allies are making at the same time other than Join Battle. Each ally may use her result if it's better than his own.

Genius Palate Summation
Cost: 2m; Mins: Awareness 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple (Instant)
Keywords: None
Prerequisite Charms: Keen Sense Technique (Smell, Taste and Touch) or Keen Sense Technique x3

This Charm acts as an automatically successful read intentions action to determine the emotional state of the one who prepared a meal or poured a drink. The Solar need only sample a single bite of a meal or take a single sip of a drink to gain this understanding.

Vigilant Friend Technique
Cost: 1m; Mins: Awareness 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple (Indefinite)
Keywords: Stackable
Prerequisite Charms: Surprise Anticipation Method

The Solar touches a willing character. As long as she keeps the mote committed, she may roll (Perception + Awareness) to notice danger to the character, as though she were standing next to him. Add +1 difficulty if he's more than 1 mile away from her, +2 if more than 10, +3 if more than 100, +4 if he's anywhere on the same plane of existence or +5 if he's not. She doesn't learn the form of the danger, only that it exists, a general sense of the severity, and his location.

If the character dies, the Solar automatically notices and knows where it happened.

Roused Dragon Detection
Cost: 1m, 1wp; Mins: Awareness 5, Essence 2
Type: Supplemental (Instant)
Keywords: None
Prerequisite Charms: Eyeless Harbinger Awareness

This charm supplements an attack, allowing the Solar to strike a foe within her weapon's range that she doesn't know the location of. This only reveals the location of her foe if he fails to find a different hiding place on his next turn (if he can do so without changing range bands, this doesn't use up his move action).

Foe-Scenting Method
Cost: 3m; Mins: Awareness 5, Essence 2
Type: Simple (Instant)
Keywords: None
Prerequisite Charms: Keen Sense Technique (Smell, Taste and Touch) or Keen Sense Technique x3

The Solar makes a scent-based Read Intentions actions using (Perception + Awareness) to determine a target's disposition, out to medium range without the need to directly interact.

Rumour Of The Earth
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Awareness 5, Essence 2
Type: Simple (Instant)
Keywords: Mute
Prerequisite Charms: Keen Sense Technique (Hearing) or Keen Sense Technique x3

The Lawgiver places her head against the ground and listens for five minutes. She can hear any creature larger than a mouse moving within (Essence * 5) miles, and learns their general location, number, and speed and direction of movement. Used in a city or other busy area, the results may not be that useful, but will still indicate any general motion of large numbers of people.

Fragility-Creating Examination
Cost: 5m; Mins: Awareness 5, Essence 2
Type: Supplemental (Instant)
Keywords: None
Prerequisite Charms: Keen Sense Technique

This Charm supplements a feat of strength intended to break something. Before rolling (Strength + Athletics), the Solar rolls (Perception + Awareness) against a difficulty equal to the Strength minimum of the feat. For every two threshold successes, reduce the Strength minimum for the feat by 1 or reduce the difficulty by one (or some mix thereof).

Vulnerability-Seeking Stare
Cost: 4m, 1wp; Mins: Awareness 5, Essence 2
Type: Supplemental (Instant)
Keywords: None
Prerequisite Charms: Awakening Eye

This Charm supplements an Aim action. The attack enhanced by the Aim action is further improved; if withering, the attack may only be soaked by the target's Stamina. If decisive, it ignores Hardness and adds (Essence) to the damage roll.

Guard-Piercing Gaze
Cost: 4m, 1wp; Mins: Awareness 5, Essence 3
Type: Supplemental (Instant)
Keywords: None
Prerequisite Charms: Vulnerability-Seeking Stare

This Charm supplements an Aim action. The Solar rolls (Perception + Awareness) against a difficulty of the targeted character's Evasion or Parry. The target may use Charms to increase their Defense as though this were an attack. If she succeeds, the attack enhanced by the Aim action is either undodgeable or unblockable (depending on which Defense they rolled to overcome).

If used alongside its prerequisite, ignore the wp cost on this charm.

Unsurpassed Hearing Discipline
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Awareness 5, Essence 3
Type: Simple (One conversation)
Keywords: None
Prerequisite Charms: Keen Sense Technique (Hearing) or Keen Sense Technique x 3

The Solar listens in on conversations that happened in her location up to (Essence x 5) hours prior to her arrival as though it were happening right next to her. She must sit still and listen intently for as much of the conversation as she wishes to hear.

Vigilant Warrior's Counterstroke
Cost: 5m; Mins: Awareness 5, Essence 3
Type: Reflexive (Instant)
Keywords: None
Prerequisite Charms: Surprise Anticipation Method

The Solar may use this charm once per scene when targeted by a Surprise or Ambush attack. She may draw a weapon, then Clashes the attack. If clashing an Ambush she suffers -2 on her roll.

Dedicated Unerring Ear
Cost: 3m; Mins: Awareness 5, Essence 4
Type: Reflexive (One exchange)
Keywords: None
Prerequisite Charms: Unsurpassed Hearing Discipline

This charm may be activated any time the Exalt is addressed by someone for whom she holds a Major or Defining Intimacy, no matter how far away he is. So long as she's on the same plane of existence, the Solar can hear the words clearly, as if they were in the same room, so long as they are addressing their speech to her. She can hear everything her compatriot wishes to say to her, until the character has been silent for ten seconds or longer.

With an Essence 5 repurchase, the charm may also be activated whenever any character uses the Solar's name to refer to her, even if they are not addressing her, without the need for a relevant intimacy. If her name is in common use, the Storyteller should still mostly call attention to interesting and relevant references she might overhear, rather than mundane conversations.

Eye of the Unconquered Sun
Cost: 10m, 1wp; Mins: Awareness 5, Essence 4
Type: Simple (One Turn)
Keywords: None
Prerequisite Charms: Awakening Eye, Roused Dragon Detection

The Solar's caste mark blazes like a tiny sun, cancelling any Essence-muting magic the Solar may be using and removing her from stealth. She applies a single Perception + Awareness roll with (Essence) bonus dice and disappearing 1s against every character's Evasion out to long range. Even solid walls are no protection. Any character who didn't dodge is subject to the following effects.

- They automatically know they've been spotted, and by who.
- All magical and mundane Stealth effects are canceled, and she becomes aware of their presence.
- Fog lifts, smoke parts, and clouds dissolve.
- Dematerialized spirits are forced to materialize, paying full cost of the Materialize Charm or as much of it as they can pay.
- All disguise magic is stripped. Mundane disguises tatter and melt away, shapeshifters natural form becomes obvious to all viewers, resplendent destinies are temporarily forced into dormancy, personas are suppressed, and other transformative magic is similarly deactivated or the true form of their user revealed.
- This charm cannot contest Perfect effects, such as the Night caste anima power. The Solar learns that she's run up against such an effect, but can't break it.

If Keen Sense Technique is active, this Charm extends to extreme range.

---

Removed charms:
Really, this tree should be evaluated on its own merit. It's not that closely related to the one from the book anymore. But for the same of completeness:

• Foe-Scenting Method: I dunno. The charm is speed-bumpy, and it doesn't really feel Solar to me anyway. I reused the name though.
• Studied Ear Espial: Speedbumpy conditional Excellency discount.
• Inner Eye Focus: Dice adders. Dice adders everywhere.
• Unswering Eye Method: A whole charm tree of nothing but dice adders!
• Space-Saving Concession: Wow, way to not use keywords! Also way to be unclear about which charms are so affected.
• Scent-Honing Prana: Eeeeh, I get what they were going for, covering all the senses. But this effect just really feels unnecessary. Especially because I stole Uncanny Perception Technique for Awareness.
• Knowing Beyond Silence: Yet another Join Battle enhancer. Felt redundant with Eyeless Harbringer Awareness.
• Living Pulse Perception: Too narrow and situational.
• Unsurpassed Sight Discipline: All effects already covered by just having a good roll.
• Blink: Post-roll rerolls are weird.

[TheGraySoul]

Wow, I really like this project. I feel like I'm actually able to understand a lot more of these charms now whereas before I only got the gist. Keep up the good work!

[Totentanz]

I love the sidebar with guidelines on adjudicating stupid numbers of Awareness successes. I know how to do that from playing Aberrant, but I shouldn't need an understanding from a completely different WW game to understand Exalted.

[Sanctaphrax]

4. It wasn't meant to be a nerf, but raising attribute scores is pretty wonky and unclear in how it works with other rules. Tweaked a bit, does this change seem a bit better?

Yep.

9. Urg. Trying to figure out how to stagger dice-trick increases across essence levels is hard, though I agree that it wasn't working great as is. Does this new version work better for you? With Nine Aeons Thew, you can now spend 11m, 2wp to have disappearing 1s and 2s, double 9s and exploding 9s and 10s. http://anydice.com/program/76ca. Very reliably hit 15 successes, often hit 20. If you add in Triumph-Forged God-Body, it's reliably 20 successes.

Better. But still, canon goes way further than this. And I don't think it was a problem that Solars could do a difficulty 40 strength minimum 20 feat after buying a bunch of Charms.

Maybe you could bring back the old Thunder's Might effect at Essence 4?

New Thunder's Might could use some more oomph too. Disappearing 1s just takes 10 dice from 5 successes to 5.555 successes on average. Disappearing 1s and 2s with 20 dice takes you from 10 successes to 12.5 successes, which is better but still nothing to write home about.

Will look at Awareness next post.

[BlueWinds]

Better. But still, canon goes way further than this. And I don't think it was a problem that Solars could do a difficulty 40 strength minimum 20 feat after buying a bunch of Charms.

Will look at Awareness next post.

I think we've hit the first of the opinions I warned about, which doesn't agree with everyone's view of Exalted: ~20 successes is plenty. I think "tear open the earth to create a crevasse. Smash through ten feet of solid stone. Lift a yeddim or outpull a team of them. Tow a boat away from a waterfall while swimming." are all reasonable for an E5/Athletics Supernal Solar, the top tier efforts of legendary heroes. I don't want difficulty 40 feats - whatever those happen to look like - in my games.

[Sanctaphrax]

Alright, fair enough.

Still, the new Thunder's Might is pretty uninspiring. Would be better if the full effect didn't cost willpower.

Awareness is a tough tree. I don't really feel like there's quite enough meat here - there's only so many ways you can boost Join Battle and gain bonuses against Stealth, given that most of the previous meat of the charms was just things that should already be covered by rolling well.

If anyone has a few ideas for neat new Awareness charms, I'm all ears.

I liked Awareness when I first read it. But I've kind of soured on it, particularly after reading this. You've definitely improved it, but I don't know if I like the improved version. Which makes the original look pretty crappy...

Fortunately, I have lots of ideas for more Charms.

-Look at someone's body and see their physical Attribute and Ability ratings, their health track, and some of their specialties.
-Predict someone's next action in combat by watching their nerves. Therefore giving you...some kind of bonus.
-Find a weak point in an object or person, boosting an attack or a breaking feat of strength.
-See for hundreds and hundreds of kilometers after an hour or so of intent staring.
-An upgrade for that: look at the sun, and see anything it illuminates reflected in its face.
-Notice when people mess with your fate, scry on you from afar, or cast spells on you.
-Ignore all penalties for blindness, deafness, etc, by using your other senses magnificently.
-Upgrade Dedicated Unerring Ear so that you can hear whenever someone uses your name. (Got the idea from Voldemort's trick in Harry Potter.)
-Do an hour's worth of examination in a moment.
-Read intentions, anti-lying, and anti-disguise stuff.
-See/hear/feel everything as if it was very close to you.
-Share a successful anti-ambush roll, letting your allies notice whatever you noticed.
-Extend the danger sense that SAM provides to cover other people.

Sensory Acuity Prana
Cost: 5m; Mins: Awareness 2, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: None
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: None

This charm supplements an Awareness roll, granting it and further Awareness rolls for the rest of the scene double 9s.

No disappearing 6s?

This Charm is boring and mandatory, so I think it should at least be fairly strong.

Surprise Anticipation Method
Cost: —; Mins: Awareness 3, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Sensory Acuity Prana

The Solar takes no penalties to Awareness rolls to notice personal danger from being tired, asleep or unconscious. She wakes with a premonition of danger (though not its source) even if she fails such a roll.

In addition, for every 9 or 10 the Solar rolls on an Awareness check to notice or locate a hidden enemy, trap, or any source of harm not readily apparent, she gains 1m.

I'm not sure making the motes permanent is a good idea. I liked it on the Athletics Charms, but here I think it might be too good. This is close to an entry-level Charm, and it might give a strong mote-grinding advantage to any Solar fighting a Stealth-heavy fighter.

Also, I just heard someone talking about how good the current SAM is in another thread. Although they were saying that they liked how it eventually made Indefinite Awareness Charms free, which you probably don't approve of.

Sidebar: WHAT CAN I DO WITH AWARENESS
In addition to the obvious use of noticing assassins, a Solar with 5 successes on an Awareness roll might:

• Read a letter at a glance from across the room, quickly count masses of troops, see through smoke and fog.
• Identify an individual by scent, count the number of individuals in a crowded room, detect poison before taking a bite of food, identify every ingredient in a stew, tell how long ago a specific person left a room..
• Listen to conversations through thick stone walls, identify materials by touch, recognize counterfits, feel an earthquake minutes or hours before it happens.

With 10 successes, she might:

• Spot a field mouse a quarter mile, read a letter at a hundred yards, critique the mating habits of insects.
• Smell blood from a mile away, identify which farm food came from by tasting each field in turn
• Listen in on a whispered conversation out to long range on a battlefield, read by tracing her fingers over the ink on a page, orient herself to the exit in complete darkness.

...

Keen Sight Technique
Cost: 3m; Mins: Awareness 3, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: One scene or Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: Sensory Acuity Prana

The Solar gains an additional two dice to notice hidden persons or devices, catch sleight of hand, see through disguises and notice things in dim conditions.

If she pays a 3m, 1wp surcharge, the duration of Keen Sight Technique changes in Indefinite.

With an Essence 3+ repurchase, the Solar gains (Perception) bonus dice, rather than two. She can see in zero-visibility environments such as complete darkness, an underwater silt-cloud, etc.

Keen Taste and Smell Technique
Cost: 3m; Mins: Awareness 3, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Sensory Acuity Prana

Add 2 successes to Survival rolls to hunt for food, track a character, find water or see through disguises of characters the Solar has met before. If the Solar has a specialty relevant to an Awareness or Survival roll using scent, add an additional success.

If she pays a 3m, 1wp surcharge, the duration of Keen Taste and Smell Technique changes in Indefinite.

With an Essence 3+ repurchase the Solar gains (Perception) successes instead of 2. She also gains the ability to scent moods, making Read Intentions actions to determine a target's disposition out to medium range without the need to directly interact.

Keen Hearing and Touch Technique
Cost: 3m; Mins: Awareness 3, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Sensory Acuity Prana

The solar takes no penalties to any roll for dim lighting, fog, smoke, or similar, and those rolling against her gain no bonuses from the same.

If she pays a 3m, 1wp surcharge, the duration of Keen Taste and Smell Technique changes in Indefinite.

With an Essence 3+ repurchase the Solar can listen in on conversations that happened in her location up to (Essence x 5) hours prior to her arrival as though they were happening right next to her. She must sit still and listen intently for as much of the conversation as she wishes to hear.

That sidebar is a good idea. Unfortunately, it kinda makes Keen X Technique pointless. Or maybe it just reveals their existing pointlessness. Woo, minor dice bonuses...

I'm not sure how this can be fixed. Maybe make the bonuses huge, but have them only apply to certain rolls?

Eyeless Harbinger Awareness
Cost: 3m; Mins: Awareness 3, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: None
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Keen Hearing and Touch Technique

This Charm supplements a Join Battle roll when at least one target is within short range of the Solar, but they do not have line of sight to each other. Add three dice to her Join Battle roll, and it gains disappearing 1s.

If she knows Keen Hearing and Touch Technique x2, this charm works out to medium range, and if not already aware, she learns the general size, shape and direction of her foe.

Kinda bugs me that this encourages you to close your eyes right before a fight starts. That's just weird.

And the anti-synergy with Awakening Eye is irritating too.

Inner Eye Focus
Cost: 4m; Mins: Awareness 5, Essence 2
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Unswerving Eye Method

This charm supplements a Join Battle roll when the Solar can see at least ane opponent, or any Awareness roll to contest a Stealth or Larceny action against her. She gains disappearing 6s.

"ane" opponent should probably be "one" opponent.

Anyway, this feels weak to me. The canon version does too, but this is even weaker. 4m to get one success for every 18 dice...it's a little better with some kind of doubler, but only a little.

Dedicated Unerring Ear
Cost: 3m; Mins: Awareness 5, Essence 4
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: One exchange
Prerequisite Charms: Keen Hearing and Touch Technique x 2

This charm may be activated any time the Exalt is addressed by someone for whom she holds a Major or Defining positive Intimacy, no matter how far away he is. So long as she's on the same plane of existence, the Solar can hear the words clearly, as if they were in the same room, so long as they are addressing their speech to her. She can hear everything her compatriot wishes to say to her, until the character has been silent for ten seconds or longer.

Would be cool if this worked for negative Intimacies too. So you can hear it when your hated enemy threatens you from afar.

Eye of the Unconquered Sun
Cost: 10m, 1wp; Mins: Awareness 5, Essence 4
Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: One turn
Prerequisite Charms: Awakening Eye + Any 3 non-Excellency Awareness Charms

The Solar's caste mark blazes like a tiny sun, cancelling any Essence-muting magic the Solar may be using and removing her from stealth. She applies a single Perception + Awareness roll with (Essence) bonus dice and disappearing 1s against every character's Evasion out to long range. Even solid walls are no protection. Any character who didn't dodge is subject to the following effects.

- They automatically know they've been spotted, and by who.
- All magical and mundane Stealth effects are cancelled, and she becomes aware of their presence.
- Fog lifts, smoke parts, and clouds dissolve.
- Dematerialized spirits are forced to materialize, paying full cost of the Materialize Charm or as much of it as they can pay.
- All disguise magic is stripped. Mundane disguises tatter and melt away, shapeshifters are forced back into natural form, resplendent destinies are temporarily forced into dormancy, personas are suppressed, and other innate or native transformative magics of the Exalted are similarly deactivated.

If Keen Sight Technique is active, this Charm extends to extreme range.

I'm not sure this should cancel transformations. Feels kinda lame if a Lunar turns into Godzilla and you shut them down by looking at them really hard.

Maybe the true form could just become obvious?

[Tikor]

PS: If the community keeps this pace up, we'll have a whole new edition with a full set of playable splats by the end of March.

I, too, love the creativity of this forum.

[BlueWinds]

I've been down with a cold and busy moving into a new place (both at the same time, yay!), so game stuff has taken second seat for a while.

Alright, fair enough.

Still, the new Thunder's Might is pretty uninspiring. Would be better if the full effect didn't cost willpower.

That's entirely fair. There's no good reason for the wp cost other than tradition - removed.

I liked Awareness when I first read it. But I've kind of soured on it, particularly after reading this. You've definitely improved it, but I don't know if I like the improved version. Which makes the original look pretty crappy...

Fortunately, I have lots of ideas for more Charms.

1. Look at someone's body and see their physical Attribute and Ability ratings, their health track, and some of their specialties.
2. Predict someone's next action in combat by watching their nerves. Therefore giving you...some kind of bonus.
3. Find a weak point in an object or person, boosting an attack or a breaking feat of strength.
4. See for hundreds and hundreds of kilometers after an hour or so of intent staring.
5. An upgrade for that: look at the sun, and see anything it illuminates reflected in its face.
6. Notice when people mess with your fate, scry on you from afar, or cast spells on you.
7. Ignore all penalties for blindness, deafness, etc, by using your other senses magnificently.
8. Upgrade Dedicated Unerring Ear so that you can hear whenever someone uses your name. (Got the idea from Voldemort's trick in Harry Potter.)
9. Do an hour's worth of examination in a moment.
10. Read intentions, anti-lying, and anti-disguise stuff.
11. See/hear/feel everything as if it was very close to you.
12. Share a successful anti-ambush roll, letting your allies notice whatever you noticed.
13. Extend the danger sense that SAM provides to cover other people.

1. Neat.
2 I'm not sure how to implement either. I'll think on it more.
3. Good idea. I like cross-ability synergy.
4. Hm. Maybe. Not sure I want this effect to exist.
5. Definitely don't want this, though. This is E6 magic or sorcery.
6. Good one for sure.
7. These are already covered by existing charms - I'll try to make that clearer.
8. This is an excellent idea. Really cool.
9. There's already an Investigation charm similar - I think this effect belongs there more than awareness.
10. Right, should have some more specialized effects here rather than just generic roll-boosts.
11. Hm. Needs more thought.
12. Oooh, for sure.
13. Also neat upgrade.

[Sanctaphrax]

I've been down with a cold and busy moving into a new place (both at the same time, yay!), so game stuff has taken second seat for a while.

Ugh. Colds are bad, moving is worse. You have my sympathies.

5. Definitely don't want this, though. This is E6 magic or sorcery.

I can see an argument for making it E6, but if it's possible with Sorcery I think it should be possible with Awareness at a similar Essence level. Sorcery shouldn't beat Solar Charms at their own game; a Solar who wants to be really good at seeing stuff should buy Awareness, not Occult.

[Ph34r_n0_3V1L]

BlueWinds The third Night Caste Anima entry says "This is considered a perfect effect, and cannot be pierced by Eye of the Unconquered Sun (see p. 273) or other all-seeing magic." Does that mean EotUS can't penetrate perfect effects or just the Anima power? Whichever, it would prevent arguments if there was a reminder in the charm text: "Eyes of the Unconquered Sun cannot penetrate (perfect effects such as) the Night Caste Anima effect."

[McAllister]

Keen Taste and Smell: are the Read Intentions rolls automatically successful? If not, can they at least explicitly use Perception+Awareness?

[Sanctaphrax]

Just read Irked's read-through thread, and he pointed out a couple of things that are relevant here.

First, Rain Of Feathered Death should probably say "If the attack hits, each created arrow hits with a raw damage equal to the Solar's current Initiative minus her successes on the previous damage rolls, to a minimum of (Essence) damage", instead of "If the attack hits, each created arrow hits with a raw damage equal to the Solar's current Initiative minus her successes on the previous damage roll, to a minimum of (Essence) damage". Doesn't fit the example without the pluralization.

Second, Ten Ox Meditation seems even lamer when you pay attention to the fact that the main feat of strength tree doesn't require it. I suggest ditching it, and maybe giving its effect to Thunder's Might. It's a pretty weak effect, so I doubt it'd unbalance anything. The only prereq you'd have to adjust is Triumph-Forged God-Body's.